Thai Coconut-Curry Salmon

Inspired by the Blue Dragon cooking competition (see above), Rick Green’s delicious salmon recipe serves any quantity you choose. If you’d rather use a fish other than salmon in this gorgeous dish, do so! Here’s how to make it, in Rick’s own words.

Thai Coconut-Curry Salmon:

To make the sauce, I added some oil to a saucepan and about 1 tbsp. (15 mL) per-person of the Blue Dragon Thai Red Curry Sauce which I cooked until fragrant. Then I stirred in about 2 tbsp. (30 mL) of coconut milk per person, cooking it until it was heated through. The proportion of curry sauce to coconut milk can be altered to suit the desired degree of spiciness.

I thought the seasoning needed some adjustment. Normally to do this, the Thais will use a combination of sugar and nam pla (fish sauce). Unfortunately, neither was readily available, so I added about a tablespoon of fresh, peeled slivers of ginger root to lend a little spicy sweetness. To infuse the liquids with the flavor of the ginger, I brought the sauce to a boil, then simmered it about 15 minutes.

To prepare the salmon, we seasoned it with salt and pepper (to taste) 10 minutes ahead of cooking. I then added some oil to a sauté pan, heating it on medium-high until the oil easily slid around the pan without smoking. Adding the salmon, skin side up, to the pan, I cooked it 2-to-3 min. per-side. The cooking time, of course,  depends on the thickness of the salmon filet. 

One of our filets was half the thickness of the other two, so I added it to the pan when the others were half-cooked. Just before plating the salmon, I spooned some of the coconut-curry sauce mixture over it, cooking a little of its flavor into the surface of the fish.

I plated the salmon filet skin-side down, napping a little of the coconut-curry sauce over it. I topped this with a few cubes of fresh pineapple that I’d diced and sautéed with a whisper of oil in a hot skillet. I then spooned on a little more coconut-curry sauce, integrating some of its flavor into both the fish and the pineapple. 

If I were to do this again, I like the idea of grilling the pineapple and cooking it with some of the sauce on the stove top. Garnish with sliced scallions or green onions (“spring” onions).